When I think back upon my life and think about the biggest blessing God has given me, different options come to mind.
– Being brought up in a middle class family
– Growing up in the United States
– Having an awesome group of friends , some who I’ve known since kindergarten and 1st grade
– Having such a great youth group growing up
– Having the opportunity to work at an awesome summer camp (Kenbrook) for 3 summers.
– Graduating from university debt free.
– Having the honor to captain my Ultimate Frisbee team my senior year.
But greater than all of these blessings is having such an awesome family who supports me in everything I do.
As those of you who have been following along know, this month we are working at a orphanage of about 35 girls. These girls either have no parents present in their lives or just one that can’t afford to care for them. This week we are running a summer camp that has added about 25 more girls and boys to campus and it has been a blast. Unfortunately, 2 of the girls got the chickenpox, have had to miss camp and for the time being had been deemed temporarily untouchable.
Tonight we are having a water ballon battle that has required my team to fill up what I’d estimate to be at least 2,000 over the past few days.
Yesterday while the rest of my team was off teaching first aid to the campers or setting up for that nights competition, I stayed back to spend some personal time and work on water balloons. I wasn’t 10 minutes into it before 5 kids came up to help. Three who were too young for camp (5-7 year olds) and the two with chickenpox. The thing is, I’ve never had chickenpox. I had the vaccine when I was younger but from doing research that’s only good for 10-20 years. The virus that causes chickenpox is highly contagious and our initial instinct was to stay away from them especially because of what was happening next week.
Next week is PVT and I am very excited for it! PVT stands for Parent Vision Trip and it’s when parents have the opportunity to come out on the field for a week and do ministry with us and experience a little bit of what our life has been like for our past 7 months and the next 4 months.
So when the girls came up to help my initial thought was worry. What if I got chickenpox? Next week would be miserable, and my parents would have payed all that money to come see me for me to only be sick potentially the whole time.
But then I felt an ease in my spirit. In that moment I knew I was there to love these girls who have been outcasts this week. They went from getting all of our attention the prior two weeks to getting little to none this week. If loving them through letting them help me fill up water balloons with me got me sick it would be worth it. So I found myself embracing their help, tying their balloons and frequently brushing the backs of our hands against another as we sat side by side filling up balloons.
Throughout that hour of them helping me I found myself praying to stay healthy but more so praying for God to help me love these girls more. If I get sick and my time with my parents isn’t as exciting or fun, that’s ok because I have the blessing of having parents who care about me. These girls get a whole lot of love from the awesome staff here but parental love is something they don’t have. The ability my team has to be older brothers and sisters to these girls and show love to them has been a huge privilege.
Mom and dad,
Thank you for loving me so much and supporting me in everything I do. If I end up with chickenpox when you come next week, I am sorry but I’m only trying to show the love both you two and God has so freely shown me over the past 23 years.
In sickness or in health see you next week!
